As usual, if you want to get anything done in America, step one is to sacrifice the mental and physical health of women by making it an Abortion Issue. So although HR 218 passed about forty minutes ago, it passed with an amendment which prohibits any insurance company receiving federal funds from covering abortions. This has the charming effect of probably killing insurance coverage for abortion altogether, notes NARAL:

The Stupak-Pitts amendment makes it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new system to offer abortion coverage to women. This would have the effect of denying women the right to use their own personal private funds to purchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system — a radical departure from the status quo. Presently, more than 85 percent of private-insurance plans cover abortion services.

Charmingly I expect that in the next few days all your liberal dude friends will be trying to explain to you that this is really no big deal, look, they had to get the Republicans/”Democrats” onboard SOMEHOW, this is just a battle but we won the war, etc etc. It all makes me want to crawl back up across the border. Why don’t these men ever notice that their go-to bargaining chip is women’s bodies? And if they do notice, why doesn’t it bother them?

26 Responses to “You Can Put Down Your Champagne Now”

As a longtime lurker from Jezebel who followed you five fantastic women to this blog, I had to jump in here.

I’ve been beating my head against the wall all day. All my friends, boyfriend included, who is normally, if not perfectly feminist, at least willing to examine his privilege, have been “explaining” to me why I should be grateful for this legislation and abortion really isn’t a big deal. After all, they remind me, as a middle class college graduate from California, its not like I personally won’t be able to get an abortion!

How can i explain to them that this isn’t about me? How can I articulate that to me, this feels like yet another betrayal by the Democrats, who of course, still expect me to vote for them because they’re “better” than the Republicans? Why is women’s bodily autonomy not considered a big deal to ostensibly progressive people?

Sorry for the rant, this is why I don’t tend to comment. Things that sound good in my head often become unintelligible once on page.

When will ALL women be trusted to make reproductive health decisions?
I don’t mean only those require no federal government funding for health care.

I do have a suggestion about a form of action to take when someone sprouts the sorts of things you are talking about, Pilgrim Soul. However it is very childish, and I don’t think will help any campaign to stop treating women’s bodies (at least those bodies who require federal funding for health needs) as baby making machines.

What’s to stop someone who doesn’t receive government funds from offering private insurance for abortion coverage? Granted, most women wouldn’t seek this coverage out, but what if purchasing this insurance were presented as a radical act? I’m almost too old to get pregnant, but I’d buy a policy. Hell, I’d buy a few of them. Does anyone want to get together and form an insurance company?

And the media coverage is awful. CNN says “The first amendment, introduced by anti-abortion Democrats, bans federal funds for abortion services in the public option and in the insurance “exchange” the bill would create.”

Well, that’s almost exactly what we have now. And not what the amendment does. Thanks for informing us!

Don’t forget all of the women who will say (and already have said), completely unironically, “Well if we have to wait just a bit to get to that it’s okay, the important thing is the bill.”

Are these people aware of any political history at all? “Wait your turn ladies, [Every Other Issue Ever Even Superficially Discussed In The Political Arena Not To Mention Raising Your Children Until They Are Grown And Then Dedicating Yourself Fulltime To Your Grandchildren] is a little bit more important right now, don’t you agree?” is pretty much the history of women wanting any rights or even recognition in the United States. Ever.

I’m just not happy about the health care “reform” bill period. And the fact that they had to hold a kangaroo kourt where women’s reproductive rights got sent to the gallows before it could be passed is just icing on the shit cake.

I will say that this is the House bill and we don’t know if these provisions will be in the Senate bill or if they’ll make it through conference. Apparently Obama promised that he’d personally work to get the language removed (great, I really trust that he’ll do that). So it’s not the end of the end — but it is really upsetting. I tried to call my rep probably 15 or 20 times last night and his line was busy. Left a message, sent an e-mail…the fucker voted for it anyway. This man’s been my representative since long before I started voting and he generally does a good job but this is really enough to make me look for other options come next year.

I am well aware it’s the House Bill. I would like a link if you have it for that Obama statement, baraqiel; I don’t see it anywhere in what I’m reading.

I do think the language will likely make it through the Senate, perhaps slightly altered, but nobody ever lost an election by sacrificing women’s health for the “greater good.”

What pisses me off in any event is the symbolism of the gesture. I don’t know that I thought getting abortions covered was a realistic goal. What I thought was a realistic goal was not turning this issue into yet another, “Well, OK, so long as them slutty incubators don’t benefit, OK” situation.

This makes me so fucking angry that I barely have words for it. I thought about making my own blog post about it, but I’m not sure I can articulate my rage well enough.

It’s not an issue, personally, for me. Even in my relatively broke-ass state, I’d be able to borrow the funds to get an abortion, if necessary. But in my neighborhood, which is predominantly lower-income minorities, this is a huge issue. Huge. My neighbors will, by and large, not be able to get abortions. My only consolation is that our representative did vote against it.

Part of me wishes that the congressmen and -women who did vote against the amendment had then had the collective balls and ovaries to say “You know what, no. We’re not sacrificing the rights of over half of the country to get something passed again.”

I woke up and saw the news the bill had passed and was overjoyed – but I read about it on a German website that didn’t mention the abortion question (which: massive FAIL from one of my favorite newspapers).

It’s only since that I’ve heard about this, and the more I do, the more it clouds the victory. I want health care reform SO BAD, but I don’t understand why abortion had to be part of the picture. Why not vote on health care reform and, if it’s that important to the congressmen, make another bill about abortion? The way it is now it’s just a way to distract the public and gain brownie points among ‘pro-lifers’ (how I hate that term) despite voting for a controversial bill.

I’m still happy at the progress towards universal healthcare, and baraqiel’s statement from Obama gives me hope, but this is disappointing.

“This also sets apart women’s rights from the Democratic/progressive/whatever agenda. As something expendable. But fundamental rights for women are not peripheral. They are core. And not just because of so-called “progressive” values. In a political sense, too: Seeing as how the Democratic party relies on women voters to win elections, you would think they would have come around to this no-brainer by now.” (Emphasis added.)

Friedman can say until she’s blue in the face that women’s issues are core and the Democratic party is missing the boat here, but the ugly fact is that Democrats can treat women’s issues as peripheral because society treats them as peripheral. The current cultural climate does not produce enough hard-line women’s rights candidates to be of any threat to the status quo.

Indeed, as a democratic voter, I often feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place. What am I supposed to do to protest this failure by my party? I can call, write, whatever, but at the end of the day, what matters is my vote. And these politicians know that no matter how loudly I scream, when it comes down to it, I don’t have many other viable options. Unless there happens to be another Democratic candidate running for the same seat who demonstrates an unequivocal commitment to supporting reproductive freedom for women (unlikely), what is my alternative? To vote Republican in protest? To not vote at all? Far too often I feel cornered. And these guys know it. I am about done with the notion that I can somehow chastise Congress (in it’s current state) into doing better on this issue. My time and energy are better spent, I think, in changing the culture that still sees women’s rights as expendable in the hopes that such changes will produce new candidates who are a real political threat.

Tallgirl-in-heels, however pointless it seems, voting for a third-party candidate is better than not voting at all. The idealist in me wants to believe that if enough women leave the Dems that there might be a viable third-party option, if not at a senate level then at least at the level of representatives and state and local government. If Ron “I-hate-taxes” Paul keeps getting elected, surely women’s rights could have a rep or two.

@Tallgirl: Unfortunately, I think the Dems get away with it because a lot of women, for whatever reason, don’t care about reproductive rights. Some are against abortion for religious reasons, some have absorbed the hate directed at choicers and internalized it, some just don’t particularly care because they don’t think it could ever happen to them.

Until we can get all women to care, we’ll continue to get society at large to give a damn.

The thing that burns me the most about my congressman’s vote is that he came right out and said that he relied on a letter the Church sent out to guide his vote. So apparently my congressional district is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Catholic Church and the actual voters are irrelevant.

Sometimes we forget that it’s a war. But then the men thoughtfully remind us. This is a war, and don’t ever pretend that it isn’t.

I’m angry, too. When will people wake up and realize that legislating what women can and can’t do with their own bodies is just as morally wrong as standing in the way of marriage equality or voting rights? It’s inexcusable, and it seems to me that people with whom I agree about so many things find this issue to be a throw-away, something less important than others.

I just read an Op-Ed in the Greenwich Time praising a local Methodist church for protesting the mother church’s position on LGBT ministrers and same-sex marriage. I agreed with almost everything, save this: “It is the only group that the policies of our great country explicitly discriminate against as well.” (Link: http://www.greenwichtime.com/editorial/ci_13731398.)

In reality, the laws of this country discriminate against women – and will do so even more explicitly if the Stupak amendment makes it into the final bill.

Women, thrown under the bus (and then told to calm down, not make a fuss, that it’s not a big deal), yet again. It makes my blood boil.

@PSoul: “I expect that in the next few days all your liberal dude friends will be trying to explain to you that this is really no big deal…”

Not to belabor the obvious, but all my liberal dude friends and relatives are outraged and infuriated by the House’s actions. I say this to help us all keep in mind that we do have genuine male allies whose support is so much appreciated. Those guys are, in the words of the t shirt, what feminism looks like!

“…all your liberal dude friends” Assuming by “liberal dude” you mean only the subset of liberal men who throw reproductive rights under the bus then yeah, I guess all liberal dudes threw women under the bus. (Coughstrawdood?cough)

The rest of us are probably as shocked and angry as you are. The monsters on the right (regardless of party) and their Stockholm-syndrome-stunned fellow travelers had already skinned reproductive rights to the bone in the “negotiations” previously. This feels like they just wanted to pour salt on raw wounds. Just because they could.

Stupack and his masters also obviously crafted it as a bomb to be dropped at the last minute — I can’t believe how unprepared the House managers were. I’m pretty sure that if they hadn’t been so blindsided they might have mounted an effective opposition instead of letting it get to a floor vote.

For instance it would have been nice if anybody had asked for a CBO score on the Stupak amendment. Hard to imagine a $500 termination hitting the Federal Budget harder than $100,000+ for care for a woman who had a preeclampsia-induced stroke late in an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy.

That might have been a zero-cost no-brainer now, while coverage can be declined for pregnancy as a preexisting condition. But presumably the new bill is going to stick both private insurers and any public providers with an itemized bill.

A CBO score will almost certainly reflect that. And it’s not too late! While it’s too late for the House version a big fat CBO score would complicate its survival in the Senate and during reconciliation.

For anyone who considers themselves a fan or supporter of Nicholas Kristof’s endeavors, you had this gem waiting for you on his Facebook page this morning:

“I’m worried about the degree to which the health reform debate is being overwhelmed by abortion politics. If the House, with its strong Dem majority, could pass reform by only 5 votes, then what will happen in the Senate, where Dems have no votes to spare? I’m pro-choice and think the curbs are wrong–but the top priority has to be to get reform through Congress this year.”

I commented, asking when the last time his white male privilege was thrown under the bus. *headdesk* So much for Half the Sky.

I’m not a fan of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, but I live in a very conservative part of the country, and I’m surrounded by people who consider abortion a moral wrong. From where I’m standing, fighting this amendment is just impossible. There is no compromise on this issue–they’d rather see the entire health care bill fail than pass it without the caveat that abortion is not covered. And they have the numbers to be a threat to the bill’s passing. It’s not a Democrat/Republican thing, it’s what the majority of constituents of the congresspeople believe–my area has a Democratic senator that will never be forgiven if they vote too pro-choice.

It is a big deal, but I don’t think this was a bargaining chip, more like a hostage situation. Pro-choice people voted for it not to get the votes but to avoid losing them. It really was a decision to save the rest of the bill, and I don’t think it could have passed any other way. The problem isn’t that the “progressive” party compromised, it’s that the other side won’t.

[...] like healthcare for half the population. Jill at Feministe, Ann at Feministing, and Pilgrim Soul at The Pursuit of Harpyness, among others, all reported in their respective Stupak rants that they’ve been harangued by [...]